Part 29

"And the time? When did you pick him up?"

"It was twenty minutes past eleven o'clock. When I stopped, I glanced at my machine clock; I carry a clock just above my speedometer."

Mr. Otis was positive in his statements. He realized, he said, that his words might relieve one man of suspicion and bring it upon another. Unless he had been absolutely certain of his facts, he would not have stated them. He was sure, beyond the possibility of doubt, that he had made no mistake when he looked at his automobile clock; it was running when he stopped and when he reached Washington; yes, it was an accurate timepiece.

Russell's alibi was established. His defence appealed to the jurymen as unassailable. When, after a conference of less than half an hour, they brought in a verdict that Mildred Brace had been murdered by a thrust of the "nail-file dagger" in the hands of a person unknown, nobody in the room was surprised.

And nobody was blind to the fact that the freeing of Eugene Russell seriously questioned the innocence of Berne Webster.

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER

Hastings, sprawling comfortably in a low chair by the south window in the music room, stopped his whittling when Berne Webster came in with Judge Wilton. "Meddlesome Mike!" thought the detective. "I sent for Webster."

"Berne asked me to come with him," the judge explained his presence at once. "We've talked things over; he thought I might help him bring out every detail--jog his memory, if necessary."

Hastings did not protest the arrangement. He saw, almost immediately, that Webster had come with no intention of giving him hearty cooperation. The motive for this lack of frankness he could not determine. It was enough that he felt the younger man's veiled antagonism and appreciated the fact that Wilton accompanied him in the rôle of protector.

"If I'm to get anything worth while out of this talk," he decided, "I've got to mix up my delivery, shuffle the cards, spring first one thing and then another at him--bewilder him."

He proceeded with that definite design: at an opportune time, he would guide the narrative, take it out of Webster's hands, and find out what he wanted to know, not merely what the young lawyer wanted to tell. He recognized the necessity of breaking down the shell of self-control that overlaid the suspected man's uneasiness.

That it was only a shell, he felt sure. Webster, leaning an elbow lightly on the piano, looked down at him out of anxious eyes, and continually passed his right hand over his smooth, dark-brown hair from forehead to crown, a mechanical gesture of his when perplexed.

His smile, too, was forced, hardly more than a slight, fixed twist of the lips, as if he strove to advertise his ability to laugh at danger. His customary dash, a pleasing levity of manner, was gone, giving place to a suggestion of strain, so that he seemed always on the alert against himself, determined to edit in advance his answer to every question.

Wilton had chosen a chair which placed him directly opposite Hastings and at the same time enabled him to watch Webster. He was smoking a cigar, and, through the haze that floated up just then from his lips, he gave the detective a long, searching look, to which Hastings paid no attention.

Webster talked nearly twenty minutes, explaining his eagerness to be "thoroughly frank as to every detail," reviewing the evidence brought out by the inquest, and criticising the action of the jury, but producing nothing new. Occasionally he left the piano and paced the floor, smoking interminably, lighting the fresh cigarette from the stub of the old, obviously strung to the limit of his nervous strength. Hastings detected a little twitching of the muscles at the corners of his mouth, and the too frequent winking of his eyes.

Judge Wilton had told him, Webster continued, of Mrs. Brace's charge that he wanted to marry Miss Sloane because of financial pressure; there was not a word of truth in it; he had already arranged for a loan to make that payment when it fell due. He was, however, aware of his unenviable position, and he wanted to give the detective every assistance possible, in that way assuring his own prompt relief from embarrassment.

By this time, Hastings had mapped out his line of questioning, his assault on Webster's reticence.

"That's the right idea!" he said, getting to his feet. "Let's go to work."

They saw the change in him. Instead of the genial, drawling, slow-moving old fellow who had seemed thankful for anything he might chance to hear, they were confronted now by an aroused, quick-thinking man whose words came from him with a sharp, clipped-off effect, and whose questions scouted the whole field of their possible and probable information. He stood leaning his elbows on the other end of the piano, facing Webster across the polished length of its broad top. His dominance of the night before, in the library, had returned.

"Now, Mr. Webster," he began, innocent of threat, "as things stack up at present, only two people had the semblance of a motive for killing Mildred Brace--either Eugene Russell killed her out of jealousy of you; or you killed her to silence her demands. Do you see that?"

He had put back his head a little and was peering at Webster under his spectacle-rims, down the line of his nose. He saw how the other fought down the impulse to deny, hesitating before answering, with a laugh on a high note, like derision:

"I suppose that's what a lot of people will say."

"Precisely. Now, I've just had a talk with this Russell--caught him after the inquest. I believe there's something rotten about that alibi of his; but I couldn't shake him; and the Otis testimony's sound. So we'll have to quit counting on Russell's proving his own guilt. We've got that little job on our hands, and the best way to handle it is to prove your innocence. See that?"

The bow with which Webster acknowledged this statement was a curious mingling of grace and mockery. The detective ignored it.

"And," he continued, "there's only one way for you to come whole out of this muddle--frankness. I'm working for you; you know that. Tell me everything you know, and we've got a chance to win. The innocent man who tries to twist black into white is an innocent fool." He looked swiftly to Wilton, who was leaning far back in his chair, head lolling slowly from side to side, the picture of indifference. "Isn't that so, judge?"

"Quite," Wilton agreed, pausing to remove his cigar from his mouth.

"Of course, it's so," Webster said curtly. "I've just told you so. That's why I've decided--the judge and I have talked it over--to give you something in confidence."

"One moment!" Hastings warned him. "Maybe, I won't take it in confidence--if it's something incriminating you."